Red Sox show promise on bittersweet day

BOSTON -- When Red Sox manager Alex Cora came to the mound following Tanner Houck’s 100th pitch in Thursday afternoon’s day-night doubleheader opener against the Yankees, it seemed like a pretty safe bet that he was about to make a pitching change.

Houck’s struggles in the sixth inning and the third time through the batting order have been well-chronicled. But with runners at the corners and one out, Cora stuck with his starter.

And Houck rewarded that faith by getting the final two outs of the inning on just five more pitches, lifting the Red Sox to a 5-0 victory that was highlighted by Houck leaping over that hurdle that has dogged him all season. The Yankees won the nightcap, 8-5.

“Yeah, I definitely thought he was going to take me out,” said Houck. “He posed the question if I could get [Jake] Bauers out. The response was, ‘Absolutely.’ I wanted to be out there and have been working day in, day out trying to get better, trying to push myself to be able to get through the sixth inning. And so that was a great hurdle to have the opportunity to go out there and compete and leave it all out there.”

It was a great development moment during a day that went beyond wins and losses.

One hour and eight minutes before Houck’s first pitch, the Red Sox announced the parting of ways with Chaim Bloom, their chief baseball officer the past four years.

Members of ownership told Cora about the move, and then addressed the players.

“We had a meeting, and no one really knew what it was for, so it was definitely kind of a shock,” said Red Sox DH Justin Turner. “Did not see that coming. You still have to go out there and play, and you’ve still got to go out there and find a way to win a baseball game.”

And that was part of the rub. The Red Sox took the field knowing Bloom might have still been around if they had won more baseball games.

”First thing that went through my mind is, we're the product on the field,” Turner said. “It's our job to go out and perform and compete and win ballgames. I mean, we didn't have a lot of time before the game, but you start to look back and reflect, ‘What could we have done here? What if we had won a few more games, would it be a different outcome?’”

Turner, 38, has been one of the bright spots of the season as he closes in on the first 100-RBI season of his career. His addition was one of the best in what was a mixed bag of an offseason for Bloom.

“I appreciate the opportunity he gave me to come over and play for this great franchise as a 38-year-old free agent, and I wish him nothing but the best,” Turner said. “I think he’s a brilliant baseball mind, and he probably has a long future in this game somewhere.”

Of all the uniformed members of the Red Sox, Cora is the one who worked with Bloom the closest. They talked daily, whether in person or remotely.

“You never expect this,” Cora said of Bloom’s dismissal. “I’ve been saying it all along: It’s on us to get these guys to be successful, and we haven't been able to. That's something we talked about yesterday -- we have to change a few things as far as the way we go about our business. It’s not working, right? We’re in fourth place, so we’ve just got to get better.”

You could see more glimpses of a bright future for the Red Sox in the Game 1 win. Houck cleared his sixth-inning hurdle. No. 17 prospect Wilyer Abreu stayed hot by lacing an RBI single in the first.

No. 3 prospect Ceddanne Rafaela curled a homer around Pesky’s Pole in right in the seventh.

And Trevor Story, a big signing by Bloom in Spring Training of 2022, took a near-perfect swing for a three-run homer to center in the eighth. Due to injuries, Story hasn’t shown the Red Sox how much he can impact a team yet. But with four years left in his contract, he has plenty of time.

“We’ve just got to focus on what we have to do right now. Today, you saw a lot of good things and we're pushing these guys to be great,” said Cora. “So that's my main goal right now.”

Befitting the type of season it has been, the Sox had to go with a bullpen game in the Game 2 loss.

“Yeah, it's pretty frustrating,” right fielder Alex Verdugo said of a season that has 15 games left. “At the end of the day, I kind of feel like it's a bipolar year. When it was good, it was really, really good. And then when it was bad, it was really bad.”